A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(20)

For two hundred and thirty-three days, her father sat in his recliner, staring at her mother’s picture, telling her how much he loved her, adored her, and couldn’t live without her. Parker would come home from work to find him talking to that picture; she would wake up in the middle of the night to find him whispering words of adoration to an eight by ten glossy.

The night before she finally left for college, she came downstairs at two in the morning after hearing a noise, only to find her father curled up in the fetal position hugging the picture to his chest and sobbing about love and loss and misery. In that moment, standing in the doorway of the living room watching her father, once the strongest man she knew, now broken and out of his mind with misery, Parker vowed to never love like that. She swore she would never let someone take so much of her heart and soul that it would wither away to nothing once they were gone. She gave up on the dream of finding someone to consume her mind, body, and soul. It only ruined you in the end. It only left you broken and unable to live.

When Parker got to college, she worked hard, made friends, and went on dates with boys that held similar interests as her. She never let them get too close, never let them see all of her; she held them at a distance and made sure they always knew where they stood with her. Parker wouldn’t play games with anyone, and she wouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep. The decisions she made never mattered the first few years. She was content, never worrying that her heart was in danger. No one threatened to make her second-guess her decision or think that she might have been wrong about her choices. The men she had met never made it past a few casual dates and a handful of sleepovers. No one threatened to break down her walls until the day she met a pair of best friends over coffee.

Parker knew she let Milo pursue her because he was safe. She knew he would never get past the fa?ade or question the person she’d become. The Parker in high school would have politely told him no, understanding that the butterflies in her stomach and the ache in her chest when she looked at his friend was nothing to be afraid of. That Parker would have taken a chance on the man who could tear her apart with just one look, see inside her soul with just one touch, and place a crack in her armor with every word he spoke.

Parker was still a typical girl for the most part and therefore still dreamed of marriage and children and a house in the suburbs. Parker built a life with Milo and agreed to marry him because, as far as her heart was concerned, he was harmless. She loved him, she cared for him, and she knew with every part of her that she'd be faithful to him for as long as he’d have her. The guilt over keeping part of herself shut off from him reared its ugly head every once in a while, especially the days when they fought and she sought solace in Garrett. He was the one person that could make her change her mind about everything and it scared her to death. On those days when she’d cry to him about fear, change, and Milo’s latest argument, he’d look at her like he knew her secret. Garrett was her best friend and could read her like a book, most of the time better than her own fiancé. She had longed for him to call her out on her lies and the way she kept her heart safe by never letting it be free just as much as she feared it. Parker knew if she ever gave him the chance, he would break her.

So she had remained content and kept up the walls and no one got hurt. It didn’t matter if she had cried herself to sleep most nights wishing for things she’d long since said goodbye to. Nothing made you reevaluate your life like death did. Parker knew that better than anyone.

These past six months, spending almost every moment with Garrett, she had started to feel the cracks in her foundation. With each passing day, her core was shaken to the bone, and she felt like she needed to hold on to something to keep from toppling over. Parker always knew he had the power to crumble everything around her into a pile of dust and regret. She didn’t have much time to decide what to do about that.

A few bumps of turbulence pulled Parker away from her thoughts. She wondered briefly if maybe the change in altitude had affected her hearing and she hadn’t really just heard Garrett say they would be playing house on this mission.

The look on his face said it all though. He was quite pleased that it was his turn to shock her. Too bad her poker face was much better than his. He may have had a pair, but she had a full house.

Parker quickly took her mind off of Garrett's pair and shrugged. “I don’t mind working on our honeymoon if you don’t, dear.”

Garrett looked at her quizzically, confident that there was no way she would be able to pull this off. This was his dream, his fantasy—to be close to her and touch her and pretend like they were as familiar with one another as a husband and wife should be. Parker wasn’t that good of an actress.

Garrett snorted. “Please, like you’re going to be able to do this. Look someone right in the eye and tell them you’re my wife and that you’re madly in love with me.”

Parker tamped down the butterflies in her stomach when he called her his wife and scolded herself for acting like a teenage girl, giddy with excitement. Those were emotions that had no business in her world.

She turned to face him and leaned in a little closer, letting her shoulder graze against his.

“I’ve passed hundreds of polygraph tests over the years, blatantly lying about information I was given. I think I can handle telling a few people I’m married to you,” she replied.



Garrett couldn’t hide his confusion at her words. He wondered why in the hell she would ever need to take a polygraph test, let alone hundreds of them. There was something different about her in that moment. She held herself with an air of authority all of a sudden, and she didn’t shy away from his stare. Parker appeared confident and strong, sexy and aloof. It reminded him so much of the first time he’d seen her.